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Profs and Pints DC presents: “Who Will Build Russia’s Future?” a look at that nation’s destiny once Putin is gone, with Sam Greene, professor of Russian politics at King’s College London, director of the Democratic Resilience program at the Center for European Policy Analysis, and co-author of Putin vs. the People: The Perilous Politics of a Divided Russia.
One day, Vladimir Putin will no longer be Russia’s president. What then? Putin has dominated Russian politics for so long that we struggle to conceive of a future other than the one he would construct for himself.
The reality, however, is that Putin’s power rests on the shoulders of tens of millions of ordinary Russians who choose to comply with the demands of his regime. And as opposition to the war in Ukraine and popular support for the recent Wagner mutiny have demonstrated, support for Putin’s leadership may be waning.
We do not know – indeed, we cannot know – when Putin will leave, or who will replace him. We do know, however, that when that happens, the Russian people will remain. It is thus of vital importance that we understand how they see politics, how they relate to one another and to the state, and how they imagine their future.
Come learn the story of story of Russian politics from the bottom up with Professor Sam Greene, who lived and worked in Moscow for 13 years as a journalist, policy analyst and academic before launching the Russian Institute at King’s College in 2012. Drawing on more than two decades of on-the-ground research in Russia, he will explore the social and political processes that made Russia’s invasion of Ukraine possible, that have sustained Putin’s popularity throughout the war, and that will determine what comes next. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)
Image: People locked out of Moscow’s Red Square during 2012 protests over election fraud. (Photo by Victor Grigas / Wikimedia Commons.)
